AOL has quietly stopped offering its free Active Virus Shield software in favor of a competing alternative from vendor McAfee Inc.

The free antivirus software, based on technology from Kaspersky Lab Ltd., had been available for the past year on AOL’s Activevirusshield.com Web site, but it apparently was pulled some time in the past week.

AOL’s free AV product is now McAfee VirusScan Plus, which was introduced last month as part of a new AOL portal, called AOL Internet Security Central.. AOL also offers Internet filtering software for parents, as well as identity theft protection and pop-up blockers, through the portal.

Although Blockbuster Inc.’s Total Access program has been adding subscribers faster than Netflix Inc.’s DVD rental service, Netflix was able to tout that only it offered the ability to instantly download movies and TV shows to a computer. Not for long. Blockbuster said Wednesday it is buying the digital movie-download service Movielink, giving it a stronger online foothold to compete with its rival.

The Dallas-based video rental chain said it would continue to operate Movielink as a stand-alone service but eventually make elements of it available through Blockbuster’s online-ordering, mail-delivery service.